


Empathy Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be

by SweetPollyOliver



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series), Karate Kid (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Protective Daniel, Soulmates feel each other's pain, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27775177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetPollyOliver/pseuds/SweetPollyOliver
Summary: Set in an alternate universe where soulmates can feel each other's pain. Even when they're the ones hurting each other.
Relationships: Amanda LaRusso/Daniel LaRusso, Daniel LaRusso/Johnny Lawrence
Comments: 49
Kudos: 136





	Empathy Ain't All It's Cracked Up To Be

Of all the things to link two souls together it had to be pain, Daniel thought as he lay in bed feeling phantom bruises bloom on his body. Wherever his soulmate was someone was hurting her. Again. He felt tears well up in his eyes and he curled up in the middle of his bed like a little comma. 

He wished he could be there with her. He wished he could fight whoever hit her like this. 

The next day at school he carefully looked Judy over discreetly from the other side of the class and was relieved (and… maybe a little disappointed? God that felt wrong) to see her bare arms free of bruises. 

*

When it rained, Johnny’s knee hurt like crap. When Daniel yawned too hard, his jaw ached. They ignored it. It was easy to ignore old hurts like that, easy to ignore what it meant. Easier than explaining why he was holding up so well when Amanda was in labour (“We’re not soulmates, we love each other and it doesn’t matter, but thanks for the concern”). Easier than sitting in a diner opposite the hospital where his son was being born and feeling absolutely nothing except a splitting headache from the bender he’d been on. 

Sometimes Daniel woke up in the middle of the night, feeling fists that weren’t there pound into his body, and thought God _damn_ it, Johnny. And then he rolled over and tried to go to sleep. What else could you do?

*

“I didn’t have a rich daddy. I had a rich stepdad. He was a real piece of shit,” Johnny said, looking away from him.

“Is he the one who hit you?” Daniel blurted out and Johnny’s head snapped back around. 

His jaw clenched and Daniel felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Shit. 

“If we’re talking about this I’m going to need a drink. There’s a bar around the corner,” Johnny said finally and stepped away from the fence and started walking away towards the sidewalk outside the courtyard. 

“Johnny,” he called after him. “Come on, we gotta get back, we gotta do the paperwork!”

“Good thing I got the keys then!” Johnny called back towards him and lifted said keys aloft and jingled them at him. 

“Yeah, I guess I deserve this,” Daniel muttered under his breath. Fuck. 

*

“It’s all bullshit,” Daniel said, no sooner than their asses were in the stools. “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean you’re meant to be or that you’re perfect for each other. It just means you hurt each other.”

“Okay, so I guess saying nothing is off the table,” Johnny rolled his eyes and gestured for the barkeeper. “Coors Banquet over here please? And a Shirley Temple for the lady.” 

“Club soda is fine, thanks,” Daniel said with more acid than the poor woman tending bar deserved. He turned back to Johnny. “I’m happy.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Johnny replied. “I’m happy you’re happy. And you’re the one who brought it up, just to remind you. I was happy to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Well… good,” Daniel’s hackles dropped a little. 

He didn’t ask him any of the questions he was burning to. He didn’t ask any more about Sid. He didn’t ask him why Johnny had hurt him so badly when it must have hurt him too. He didn’t ask him if it was because he hated him enough for taking Ali that he didn’t care, or if it was because he was a boy, or just because Johnny wanted to use Daniel’s body to self harm. 

They went back to talking around it. “It burned my chest,” he said, but not “I know that it burned yours too.” “I heard Ali clocked you right after” but not “I felt Ali clock you.” 

It was easier this way. 

*

The night after the tournament, while he was standing in Mr Miyagi’s house with Robby, he felt the fight. He kept it together alright—secondhand pain was generally more muted—but then Johnny was thrown against something and he stumbled backwards feeling shards of what felt like glass piercing his back. 

“I’ve gotta go,” he said, blanching. 

“I don’t understand,” Robby said. “What’s wrong? Did I-”

“No, Robby, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Daniel said hurriedly. “I just have to go. Something’s-”

Robby’s eyes went wide with understanding. 

“Oh my god Mrs LaRusso!” he said suddenly and Daniel hated lying to him, but he couldn’t bear telling him the truth like _this_ either. 

“I gotta go,” he repeated. “I’ll come back and drop you home, but I-”

“No, go, go,” Robby gestured urgently. “I’ll be fine!” 

*

He sped all the way to Cobra Kai, praying Johnny was there, and then hauled ass from the parking lot into the dojo to find Johnny lying prone on the ground next to John fucking Kreese on a wet mat while the odor of smoke lingered in the air. 

He grabbed the old man by the scruff of his jacket and said, “Get the fuck away from him.”

*

Johnny allowed him to fuss over his injuries. Allowed him to say it was for his own benefit. 

“So… Kreese is alive,” Daniel said.

“I didn’t lie,” Johnny winced as Daniel pushed the cold pint of Ben and Jerry’s he’d bought in the convenience store against his fist. “I thought he was dead.”

“God, it figures that son of a bitch would fake his own death twice,” Daniel said under his breath and waved off Johnny’s inquisitive eyebrow quirk. “It’s nothing. Stuff that happened in ‘85.”

“When Terry Silver fucked up your hands?” Johnny asked. Daniel swallowed. “I put it together at the All Valley committee meeting. It was him right? Or that guy Barnes?” 

“Something like that,” he said. 

“Whatever, man,” Johnny said. “We don’t have to talk about that stuff. It’s bad enough we have to feel it.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said quietly.

“Thanks for coming to help,” Johnny said finally. “I would have kicked him out myself.” 

“I know you would,” Daniel said. “But what good am I if I know you’re hurt and I don’t try to help?” 

Johnny looked down for a long time. 

“Thanks,” he repeated.


End file.
